FAQ

During the 2022-2023 academic year, AEI united its higher education outreach under one Academic Programs team to align resources, staff, and energy for greater effectiveness. This change also brought more opportunities to connect students and faculty from all backgrounds and academic environments. Insofar as the Initiative on Faith & Public Life was treated as a separate entity, that is no longer AEI’s strategy for engaging students and faculty at Christian institutions. Instead, we invite all to bring their distinctives to the same table within our think tank community.

The primary mission behind the Initiative on Faith & Public Life—and Values & Capitalism before it—was to serve as AEI’s outreach arm to Christian colleges and universities. In bringing all of AEI’s higher-ed-outreach efforts together, we aimed to increase operational efficiencies and unify the strategies for student and faculty engagement with AEI. We believe this change will lead to greater inclusion and deepening of relationships across AEI’s entire college and university network.

AEI’s Academic Programs team connects colleges and universities with the ideas and networks of the institute. The team seeks the renewal of healthy civic engagement on college campuses by facilitating educational and professional opportunities for students and faculty. To learn more about engaging with AEI as a college student or faculty member, visit AEI’s Academic Programs website.

Yes and no. Though the Initiative on Faith & Public Life is no longer a separate entity, Christian colleges and universities remain an essential constituency and partners in AEI’s higher education outreach strategy. It is AEI’s intention and desire that students from a wide range of academic environments throughout the nation will have the same access to AEI’s network, resources, staff, and scholarship.

Questions at the intersection of faith and public life are as crucial as ever. Efforts to facilitate engagement with those questions among undergraduate students and faculty will remain part of our approach. To that end, you may see AEI hosting events and offering opportunities billed under topics like “faith and public life.”

The American Enterprise Institute is a public policy research institution. In all our endeavors, AEI trustees, scholars and fellows, and officers and staff are responsible for maintaining the highest standards of integrity, intellectual rigor and excellence—and for sustaining AEI’s founding commitment to open inquiry, lucid exposition, vigorous debate and continuous improvement in the institutions of American liberty.

We remain committed to engaging students and faculty from every segment of American higher education because we know that the best and brightest of tomorrow’s leaders are found across public and private colleges, as well as Christian and other faith-based universities.

AEI’s Academic Programs will continue to offer seminars and programs akin to those previously offered by the Initiative on Faith & Public Life. Occasional educational content and programming directly relevant to the expression of Christian faith in policy, economics, and society will continue to be part of the general work of AEI and Academic Programs.

The Initiative on Faith and Public Life—and the Values & Capitalism program before it—highlighted the importance of engaging Christian audiences and institutions to address the most pressing public policy questions facing our nation and world. This remains an important part of our work at AEI. As long as Christian colleges and universities want to engage with AEI, AEI wants to continue welcoming students and faculty from such campuses to our think tank community.

All of the same opportunities are available to students and faculty from a wide range of colleges and universities, from faith-based schools to public state universities to private secular colleges. To learn more about engaging with AEI as a college student or faculty member, visit AEI’s Academic Programs website.

AEI’s Academic Programs team is growing its network of faculty and other higher education leaders. As part of these efforts, we want to continue cultivating relationships with and among Christian college and university faculty, and administrators because we value the unique perspective faith leaders bring to our work. Faculty are essential to our mission to renew healthy civic engagement on college campuses. Members of this growing faculty network help recruit students to AEI programs and facilitate events with AEI scholars on their campuses, as well as receive access to complimentary books and invitations to faculty-only gatherings. To learn more, visit AEI’s Academic Programs website.

The FPL Ideas Council was composed of alumni and friends who provided valuable support in a myriad of ways to our programming. This group was invited into a national network of mentors for top students in the AEI’s Collegiate Network.

There are many friends of AEI doing excellent work that we would invite you to learn more about, including: The After Party from Redeeming Babel, Baylor in Washington, The Center for Christianity and Public Life, Center for Public Justice, Christianity Today, Comment, Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Faith and Law, The Fellows Initiative, John Jay Institute, and The Trinity Forum.

Please direct any further questions to academicprograms@aei.org.